One demographic is hit with more grievance complaints than any other: male solo practitioners or small-firm owners who are 50 or older.

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That's according to Suzanne Sutton, who served nine years with Connecticut's Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, before joining Cohen & Wolf's Orange office to represent attorneys faced with grievance complaints or malpractice claims.

"Whether it's a function of the fact that they're a solo firm or a small firm, or that they're getting older and not quite as attentive, for whatever reason that seems to be the attorney that gets grieved the most," said Sutton, who chairs the Connecticut Bar Association's professional discipline section.

Anyone can file a complaint against an attorney, and Sutton says only about 15% of roughly 800 complaints filed in 2018 were prosecuted, and a further 35% of those were dismissed.

Those prosecuted were among a Connecticut Law Tribune study of attorney disciplinary cases from 2014 to 2019, which found dozens of veteran lawyers facing ethics charges later in their career, after maintaining decadeslong practices.

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Where Is Big Law?

The findings show older attorneys tripping up on bar rules, but they also suggest the group is more likely to come under disciplinary scrutiny than their younger counterparts or those in Big Law.

University of Connecticut law professor Leslie Levin focuses on professional responsibility and legal ethics, and says her research has shown attorneys at large firms and prosecutors rarely get disciplined, with about 90% of all disciplinary complaints levied against solo or very small-firm practitioners.

"Large firm lawyers don't get grieved very often. They do very rarely, but it's usually only if they steal money," Levin said. "Because if it's a problem with neglect or failure to communicate, somebody else can step in and do it for them if a client's not happy. And also, the firm has the resources to make it right. In other words, if somebody's not happy because a mistake was made, they can pay back the client, rather than have it blow up into something that's going to be in the Connecticut Law Tribune."

But when the attorney is a solo or small-firm practitioner, often a grievance complaint is the only recourse for dissatisfied clients, Levin says.

It's unclear why prosecutors are underrepresented in ethics cases. But Levin speculates that in small states such as Connecticut, defense attorneys might be concerned about burning bridges with prosecutors.

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Health

Another key factor landing attorneys on the disciplinary hot seat: health-related problems that bleed into their professional lives, according the Connecticut Law Tribune review of five years of attorney disciplinary cases.

For attorney Harold Burbank II, for instance, the biggest telltale sign came when he submitted a legal brief bound with twine.

What followed was the Hartford lawyer's first Connecticut discipline case—more than two decades into his career—and led to a yearlong suspension over his handling of a property dispute case in Maine.

In another case, attorney Jennifer A. Davis' brush with discipline didn't come until 20 years into her career, when she was reprimanded over allegations she failed to file a lawsuit she'd drafted.

Davis declined to comment on the charge. But the grievance commission's stipulated report of findings show the attorney had been caring for a family member suffering from a serious illness at the time.

Read more: 'They Can't Get Out of Bed': The Mental-Health Specter in Attorney-Discipline Cases

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'Home to roost'

Mark Dubois, Connecticut's first chief disciplinary counsel, said attorneys with careers spanning decades can have trouble keeping up with current rules, technology and younger litigators.

And exacerbating that, law firms are now less likely to have mandatory retirement provisions, which means attorneys are now delaying retirement, Dubois said.

Mark Dubois Mark Dubois with Geraghty & Bonnano Attorneys at Law in New London, Connecticut.

"With the economy as it's been for the last decade or so, a lot of lawyers are staying on longer and longer," said Dubois, whose practice at Geraghty & Bonnano in New London now focuses on attorney ethics, discipline and malpractice. "You have lawyers who are not as sharp as they used to be, or they're beginning to show signs of dementia."

Dubois spent years helping Connecticut modernize its attorney-discipline system in the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel in the 2000s. There, he prosecuted and supervised thousands of cases, before moving into private practice to work on the defense side, representing lawyers facing ethics charges.

Over time, he's seen one category of discipline charges acquire the nickname "old-guy overdraft cases."

These proceedings typically involve senior lawyers who weren't up to date on rules, and who have not kept good records, or updated their operating procedures.

"The law office management practices that were OK 20, 30, 40 or 50 years ago—are not going to make it in today's environment," Dubois said.

For instance, some lawyers used to keep money in client trust accounts to cover lean weeks or months, prevent overdrafts or avoid the taxman, according to Dubois, who said today's random auditing means they can no longer practice such vague bookkeeping.

"Every penny in the account must belong to a client and be accounted for," Dubois said. "Many simply cannot reconcile their accounts. And years of sloppy bookkeeping has come home to roost."

Senior attorneys can bring invaluable knowledge and experience to a firm, where they often serve as mentors to younger lawyers. But they can also fall short of technological and e-filing requirements if they don't keep up with evolving expectations, Dubois said. They're also sometimes reluctant to change conduct that's worked for them their whole career.

In Dubois' experience, many older attorneys facing discipline fall into a category of practitioners who are set in their ways, or believe they know better than the disciplinary authorities because they've been practicing longer.

"I've had a lot of senior lawyers lecture me, 'I've always done it this way.' And I'm like, 'Maybe, but that doesn't make it right,'" Dubois said.

For law firms, questions related to attorney aging can create a legal land mine in a risk-averse business reliant on acuity. Some implement mandatory retirement policies, just as Connecticut and other states have made 70 the compulsory end point for judges.

Colebrook attorney Dennis Edward Spector was admitted to the bar in 1992 and enjoyed a sanction-free career until 2016, when he was reprimanded over allegations he broke rules governing misconduct and scope of representation. 

Spector agreed to enter into a mentoring agreement with another attorney until he retired a year later.

Sometimes retirement is the right call, according to Levin.

"For some significantly older lawyers, sometimes they may not realize that it's time to retire, and so there may be both health or mental health issues that would really suggest that they should have retired and they didn't," Levin said.

If firms go too far in trying to put older attorneys out to pasture, they can find themselves on the wrong end of an age discrimination lawsuit.

As a senior attorney who's been practicing for more than 40 years, Dubois conceded he's not as invincible as he used to be.

"I used to try cases, and at night I would drive down to Newport, go out drinking and carousing and be back at court the next day, or stay up 24 hours and write a brief," he said. "Now I go to bed at 9 o'clock."

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Disentangled

For disciplined attorney Burbank, though, court records suggest a more difficult time navigating the case that blemished his record.

After submitting the ill-fated brief, Burbank made frivolous arguments when representing himself, according to a Maine Supreme Judicial Court order, which said he appeared to have a poor grasp of procedural law. In his answer, Burbank admitted to interpreting nonexistent or constitutionally vague rules and said his late responses were due to a stroke.

In another case, this one involving longtime litigator Enrico Vaccaro, court records suggest health problems and personal losses played a part in the disciplinary proceedings.

Vaccaro was admitted to the Connecticut bar in 1976 and had a clean disciplinary record for about 40 years until a series of ethics cases beginning in 2015. After decades of practice, he was reprimanded for not promptly scheduling an arbitration hearing in a personal injury case, and then again in 2017 for failing to produce IOLTA records at a grievance panel hearing.

Vaccaro had been dealing with failing health and the death of both parents at the time, according to records from the Chief Disciplinary Counsel Office documenting his presentment. He faced more discipline in 2018 for failing to comply with an order that he complete a continuing legal education course. Court documents show Vaccaro had asked to take the course online after suffering from a stroke, but that request was not granted.

As a former disciplinarian, Dubois has seen attorneys struggle to find work-life balance. He also sits on the board of Connecticut nonprofit organization Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, where he often encourages senior lawyers to consider succession planning and retirement before discipline becomes an issue.

"There's a big cohort now of people my age who don't know how to get disentangled. They've got practices, they've got clients, they've got decades of files, so, 'How do I wind this whole thing up?'" Dubois said.

The issue has prompted Dubois to contribute to seminars for the Connecticut Bar Association, and to write a manual called "The Path Out," aimed at helping lawyers resolve, wind up and transfer their work.

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The end of Louis Avitabile

But sometimes it's unclear what part, if any, age-related factors play in the downfall of older attorneys.

Take Louis Avitabile, for instance, who continued to practice despite a court order prohibiting him from representing clients. Admitted to the bar in 1968, Avitabile received the first of his seven reprimands in 1993, and was eventually limited from practicing in civil, family law or litigation over his alleged poor handling of a personal injury case.

In 2016, Avitabile agreed to voluntarily resign from the bar for life after he was accused of forging a client's name on a check, mishandling another client's settlement money and inadequate representation in a criminal case.

Other stories behind the numbers paint a picture of attorneys growing increasingly error-prone and making uncharacteristic missteps.

Among the rulebreakers: Danbury real estate lawyer Joseph Saffi, who had been practicing law without a hitch for 40 years, when he suddenly and voluntarily put himself on the disciplinary chopping block.

No one needed to report him to authorities because Saffi filed a complaint against himself with the state grievance board. He admitted to changing the date on a fax to protect a client—30 minutes after he'd done it. The case resulted in a six-month suspension, but Saffi was so remorseful he had said he was willing to give up his practice.

Then there was Hartford lawyer Arthur Field, whose only violation was a serious one.

Admitted to the bar in 1978, Field agreed to resign for six years in 2014 after pleading guilty to securities fraud and other charges.

Though most grievance complaints don't blossom into sanctions, those that do maintain one thing in common, as Levin's found: "Just about everybody who's researched the question has found it tends to be lawyers who've practiced for a few decades in their middle age who are the ones most likely to receive grievances."

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